Bruce Mau's Art School Branding

Bruce Mau's Smart Art-School Logo Is A Mini Art Gallery For Student Work

The form takes its cues from the boxy, pixely madness of OCAD U’s beloved Sharp Centre for Design, designed by Will Alsop. The bigger concept, says Laura Stein, creative director at Bruce Mau Design, was “inspired by an exercise we did in a workshop [while conducting research for the logo]. We asked people to design an OCAD University crest. And we were inspired by all the different interpretations. We realized: You don’t really know what kind of work is being produced here. So the idea of being able to show that -- of having a series of marks that they could use in that way -- felt really important. We didn’t want to have to pin them down with a monolithic identity.”